Balancing mining ships and modules

[Anderson_Geten]

Hello.

TLDR : volume in roid increases sig, chance to miss the extraction cycle is sig is too low WRT gun/drone optimal sig.

Combat ships are balanced among sizes : “bigger is not better”. In the case of mining ship, it’s no more the case : barges are just better than venture, and rorqual is just better than barges.
This creates an imbalance : as soon as you can fly a barge, there is almost no reason to not fly it ; same for rorqual.

The goals of this proposal is to make it so that ventures still find a use, and so for barge, even when a rorqual is available.

The balance among combat ships is done with the following idea : bigger has more firepower, more tank, but can do less against small targets. The main tool for that, is the sig radius: a target with a smaller sig radius will be harder to hit, and in most case it will be more efficient to use a smaller gun to hit it.

I propose the same mechanism for roids : roids have a signature radius, and therefore the mining barge and rorquals are less efficient at mining a small roid than a venture.
At first I was thinking about increasing the cycle time of the lasers/drones/excavator, but that would not work with eg ice blocks.
Instead, I propose that each laser cycle has a rate of success depending on the optimal sig of the lasers, and the sig of the roid : mining_chance = min(1, roid_sig/optimal_sig) .

First we define the optimal signatures :
mining lasers : 40m
strip miners & miner drones : 160m
excavators : 640m
that’s a *4 each time.

Then from that, we define the asteroid sizes :
here the idea is that a part of the ore is optimal for rorqual, a part for the barges, a part for ventures
My idea is, that the remaining volume in a roid makes its sig radius. I made those numbers of the spot, if you have better that would be nice.
up to 5000 m³ remaining : small size( 40m)
up to 15000m³ remaining : medium size (160m)
bigger than 15000 m³ : L size (640 m)

If we want to make it continuous, to avoid threshold effects, we can use a square function : sig = 40 +vol/60 + vol²/650000 .

Of course we also need to make roids immun to target painters.

[Lucas_Kell]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

[Maverick_Destro]

Awesome idea, @Anderson_Geten. Well, thought out. Could use some tweaking, but I’m mostly agreeing with you because Lucas is a twat.

[Lugh_Crow-Slave]

@Anderson_Geten

I found something else that wasn’t broken. Here is my nonsensical idea on how it could be fixed

,…

[Runa_Yamaguchi]

@Anderson_Geten

there is almost no reason to not fly it

Except for the type of mining run you are doing (and where). I wouldn’t use a Exhumer in LS just as I wouldn’t use a Barge in HS. Ventures are great anywhere other then HS/LS as they are throwaway and cheap.

You pick the right tool for the job…works for BS, Frigates and mining ships.

No change needed.

[Daoden]

No, we dont need to change them like this, ventures are still very usefull for their bonus to warp strength and gas harvesting which barges cant do. They serve as a good starter for new players.

[Daichi_Yamato]

Thought i was going to hate the idea but it’s not that bad. Though it’s probably not necessary.

I don’t think there’s a problem between the balance of ventures, barges and rorquals because ventures are fast for ‘gtfo’ moments, barges are middle ground and rorquals have the industrial core that commits them for several minutes.

I would however amend the idea:

• Rather than a chance to fail, I’d go for missile approach where it provides diminishing yield based on sig.

• Mining drones either get sizes and the orca uses ones with a large res (e.g. their bonus is changed to harvester drones only). Or all mining drones are less efficient than strip miners.

And so why don’t i hate the idea? Because sig is another way to balance barges against eachother (hulks can get a small bonus to res) and it hurts afk play (mining a rock to completion becomes inefficient for barges and bigger).

Ontop of that, I’d like to remind people of one old idea that would promote ninja mining with a venture:

• Rare +50% +100% yield rocks.

[Anderson_Geten]

@Daichi_Yamato

Rather than a chance to fail, I’d go for missile approach where it provides diminishing yield based on sig.

Not possible with ice rocks.

@Daichi_Yamato

and it hurts afk play

Yeah that was also a goal. Make mining require activity to be optimal.

[Daichi_Yamato]

@Anderson_Geten

Not possible with ice rocks.

Ice miners have a chance to fail. Rock miners provide diminished yield?

[Anderson_Geten]

That would mean two different mechanisms in the game, that the devs have to implement, and maintain. So twice as many bugs.
Also that could create issues (not sure) with the cargo of drones.

[Salt_Foambreaker]

@Anderson_Geten

Combat ships are balanced among sizes : “bigger is not better”.

Stopped right there, pure comedy follows.

-1

[Lygos]

Altering the environment in which an entity operates is a very good method of attenuating adaptedness.

There are other ways that one could elaborate on this concept, such as giving different hull classes a moderate spectrum of interaction by fitting different kinds of extractive modules or drones. That could result in players being able to interact with some materials on the field, and not others. It might also give them an excuse to bring a varied host of apparatus, or more players with varied skills.

Further elaborating on this approach could be different auxiliary modules or rigs, though the latter haven’t been touched in a decade. A more fundamental mechanics tweak would require operation of an analyzer modules on an entity like a resource node, before operation of an extractive module. Haphazard operation could potentially result in serious consequences in an industrial site, such as a spontaneous uncontrolled disassembly. Safety first!

It would be quite a coup if resource entities could gain some of the behaviors of other entities, but with logical behaviors, such as new entity spawning, or other challenges that might overwhelm a non-sentient client.